Floor Statements

Madam President, two things have become increasingly clear over the past week in the debate about the need to protect taxpayers from the mistakes of Wall Street: No. 1, both parties are united in the need to take action--we agree on that--and No. 2, the bill our colleagues across the aisle are insisting on as the remedy is seriously flawed.

The good news is that the bill can be improved, and both sides have expressed a willingness to make the changes needed to ensure without any doubt--without any doubt--that this bill would not allow future bailouts of Wall Street banks. We need to make sure future bailouts of Wall Street banks never occur again.

I was encouraged to hear the President yesterday acknowledge that it is his hope that the bill which emerges from this debate will not allow for bailouts. I share that hope. Republicans believe the solution is for the bipartisan talks to resume between Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby and others and not for one side to insist on a take-it- or-leave-it approach.

Like the President, I hope we can get back together and address this very important issue on a bipartisan basis. Republicans and Democrats alike believe the flaws in the Democratic bill--flaws that would allow taxpayer dollars to bail out Wall Street banks--can and should be corrected. Let's get this done. Let's take away any possibility that taxpayers will once again be told they will be on the hook for mistakes on Wall Street.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, yesterday morning I came to the floor to point out, regretfully, that the financial regulatory bill the Democratic majority plans to introduce in the coming days is fatally flawed. It not only allows endless bailouts for Wall Street, it institutionalizes them, making them official government policy. This is truly astonishing. For nearly 2 years, the American people have been telling us that any financial reform should have two goals: It should prevent the kind of crisis we experienced in the fall of 2008, and it should ensure that the biggest Wall Street banks pay for their own mistakes--the biggest Wall Street banks pay for their own mistakes. Yet

the bill we are being asked to consider does not even begin to solve these fundamental problems. In fact, it exacerbates them. It is almost as if the people who wrote this bill took the pulse of the American people and then put together a bill that endorses the very things they found most repugnant about the first bailout.

The proponents of this bill will make a lot of claims about what this bill does and does not do. But the American people did not go through the financial crisis, did not put up their own collateral to bail out Wall Street only to be deceived about the contents of this Wall Street bill.

We need some truth in advertising here, so let's look at what this bill actually does. Its authors claim the bill gives the government the authority to wind down failing firms with no exposure to the taxpayer. But as a factual matter the bill creates bailout funds, authorizes bailouts, allows for backdoor bailouts in the FDIC, Treasury, and the Fed, and even expands the scope of future bailouts.

It does this, first of all, by creating a new permanent bailout fund, a prepaid $50 billion bailout fund, the very existence of which would, of course, immediately signal to everyone that the government is ready to bail out large banks the same way it bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So the same distortions--the very same distortions that developed within the housing market would inevitably develop in the financial sector. Didn't like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? How about 35 to 50 of them? That is what this bill would give us.

Second, it authorizes bailouts for creditors. In other words, it is not enough to bail out a bank; the people who invested in the bank would get a bailout too. Made a bad bet? No problem; the government will bail you out. Made a bad bet on a company that made a bad bet? No problem; the government will bail you out, too--provided, of course, that you are among the creditors favored by the White House. This is great if you are on Wall Street; it is not so great if you are on Main Street. It is great if you are in a union; it is not so great if you are not. This bill institutionalizes the picking of winners and losers and gives the government broad authority in choosing which creditors get paid in full and which ones do not.

Third, the bill gives the government a backdoor mechanism for bailouts by extending to the Federal Reserve an enhanced emergency lending authority that is wide open to abuse. It gives the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Treasury broad authority over troubled financial institutions without requiring them to assume responsibility for their own mistakes. This means that unproductive firms which would otherwise go into bankruptcy would now be propped up by the government like zombies.

Fourth, this bill expands the scope of potential future bailouts-- expands the scope of potential future bailouts. It does this by authorizing a financial stability oversight council to designate nonbank financial institutions as potential threats to financial stability and, hence, too big to fail. So a new government board based in Washington would determine which institutions would qualify for special treatment, giving unaccountable bureaucrats and self-appointed wise men in Washington even more power to protect, promote, or punish companies at whim. These favored firms would then have a funding advantage over their competitors, leading to outsized profits and the extension of enormous additional bailout risk for taxpayers even beyond the largest banks.

Fifth, the bill does nothing to correct the massive market distortions that we all know were created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Job 1 in writing this bill should have been to address the inherent problems caused by these massive government-sponsored entities. This bill ignores that issue entirely.

The American taxpayer has suffered enough as a result of the financial crisis and the recession it triggered. They have asked us for one thing: Whatever you do, they say, do not leave the door open to endless bailouts of Wall Street banks. Whatever you do, the American people have said, do not leave the door open for endless bailouts of Wall Street banks. This bill fails at that one fundamental test.

If there were two lessons we should have drawn from this crisis, one is that if investors are reckless, then they should pay for their recklessness. If investors are reckless, they should pay for their recklessness. The other thing we should have learned is that Washington bureaucrats are horrible at seeing these kinds of crises develop. It should be beyond obvious that more bureaucrats will not prevent the kinds of problems other bureaucrats overlooked.

If you need to know one thing about this bill, it is that it would make it official government policy--official government policy--to bail out the biggest Wall Street banks. This bill would make it official government policy to bail out the biggest Wall Street banks. So if the administration is looking for bipartisan support on this Wall Street bill, they can start by eliminating this aspect of the bill, not because Republicans are asking for it but because community bankers, community bankers all across the country, and American taxpayers are demanding it.

Unfortunately, the administration evidently is more interested in using this debate as a political issue than in actually addressing, on a bipartisan basis, the many weaknesses that are currently built into our economy. For example, it has been reported that the senior Democratic Senator from Arkansas was working on a bipartisan solution to one of the key areas where reform is needed but that she was told by the White House in no uncertain terms that it didn't approve of her efforts at forging a bipartisan deal. It has also been reported that the Democratic chairman of the Banking Committee backed out of bipartisan negotiations under pressure from the White House. The White House spokesman was even more explicit, saying late last month that the White House is not interested in compromising on this legislation. So the White House has been really quite clear. It plans to take the same approach on financial reform as it took on health care--put together a partisan bill, then jam it through on a strictly partisan basis. It should go without saying that this is not the kind of approach most Americans want in Washington, and it is not the kind of approach they were told they could expect from this administration.

We can do better, and we must. Americans are still dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis. Getting this policy right should be our first priority. This bill gets it very, very wrong.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to honor Mr. Mark Leet of Flemingsburg, KY, for recently receiving the middle school Teacher of the Year award presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, VFW. Mr. Leet was recognized by the VFW for his dedication to educating students about the importance of citizenship and patriotism.

Today, I wish to honor Mr. Leet's dedication to the children of the Commonwealth and congratulate him on this well deserved award.

Mr. President, I rise to congratulate Miss Jessica K. Vaughan of Bowling Green, KY. Miss Vaughan was recently selected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States to receive the Patriot's Pen scholarship award. This scholarship program is a youth essay contest that gives middle school students from across the Nation the opportunity to articulate their views on democracy.

Miss Vaughan, an eighth grade student, was selected to receive this award based on her essay entitled ``Does Patriotism Still Matter?'' I wish to congratulate Miss Vaughan on her hard work, perseverance and dedication.

Mr. President, today I rise to honor Miss Sophia Brown of Louisville, KY. Miss Brown was recently selected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States to receive the National Voice of Democracy scholarship. This scholarship competition gives high school students from across the Nation the opportunity to write and then record a broadcast based on a selected theme.

I am particularly proud since Miss Brown is a sophomore at my alma mater, duPont Manual High School. She was awarded the scholarship based on her broadcast pertaining to American heroes. I wish to congratulate Miss Brown on her hard work, perseverance and dedication.

Madam President, a lot of smart people have thought about how to prevent a repeat of the kind of financial crisis we saw in the fall of 2008. We have heard plenty of ideas. But if there is one thing Americans agree on when it comes to financial reform, it is absolutely certain they agree on this: Never again--never again--should taxpayers be expected to bail out Wall Street from its own mistakes. We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks. That is why we must not pass the financial reform bill that is about to hit the floor.

The fact is, this bill wouldn't solve the problems that led to the financial crisis; it would make them worse. The American people have been telling us for nearly 2 years that any solution must do one thing--one thing: It must put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts for Wall Street banks. It must put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts for Wall Street banks. This bill not only allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts of Wall Street banks, it institutionalizes them. Let me say that again. This bill not only allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts for Wall Street banks, it actually institutionalizes them. The bill gives the Federal Reserve enhanced emergency lending authority that is far too open to abuse. It also gives the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury broad authority over troubled financial institutions without requiring them to assume real responsibility for their mistakes. In other words, it gives the government a backdoor mechanism for propping up failing or failed institutions.

A new $50 billion fund would be set up as a backstop for financial emergencies. But no one honestly thinks--no one honestly thinks--that $50 billion would be enough to cover the kinds of crises we are talking about. During the last crisis, AIG alone received more than three times that from the taxpayers--three times that. Moreover, the mere existence of this fund will ensure that it gets used. The mere existence of the fund will ensure that it gets used. And once it is used up, taxpayers will be asked to cover the balance. This is precisely the wrong approach.

Far from protecting consumers from Wall Street excess, this bill would provide endless protection--endless protection--for the biggest banks on Wall Street. This bill would provide endless protection for the biggest banks on Wall Street. It also directs the Fed to oversee 35 to 50 of the biggest firms, replicating on an even larger scale the same distortions that plagued the housing market and helped trigger a massive bubble we will be suffering from for years. So imagine this: If you thought Freddie and Fannie were dangerous, how about 35 to 50 of them?

Everyone agrees on the need to protect taxpayers from being on the hook for future Wall Street bailouts, but this bill would all but guarantee that the pattern continues. We need to end the worst abuses on Wall Street without forcing the taxpayer to pick up the tab. I repeat: We need to end the worst abuses on Wall Street without forcing the taxpayer to pick up the tab. That is what Republicans will be fighting for in this debate. The taxpayers have paid enough already. Taxpayers have paid enough already. We are not going to expose them to even more pain down the road.

The way to solve this problem is to let the people who made the mistakes pay for them. The way to solve the problem is to let the people who made the mistakes pay for them. We won't solve this problem until the biggest banks are allowed to fail.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, while we were in recess, the people of West Virginia experienced a very difficult mine safety experience. Our neighbors in West Virginia, like Kentucky, are big coal producers. We have had our share, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, over the years of mining disasters, and our hearts and prayers go out to our neighbors in West Virginia as they attempt to recover from the latest tragedy in what is obviously a very dangerous profession, and that is mining of coal.

Polish Tragedy

We also witnessed a great tragedy overseas, the death of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and so many other Polish leaders over the weekend. This is obviously a terrible tragedy for Poland and a great loss for us as well. Poland is a great friend of the United States and we send our heartfelt condolences and every expression of solidarity to the Polish people and the families of the dead at this very difficult time.

Long-Term Fiscal Security

Turning back to home now, I want to welcome everybody back. I hope everyone had a restful and productive break. My constituents have never been shy about sharing their views on what we are doing here in Washington. These past 2 weeks were no different. To be perfectly blunt: Kentuckians are concerned about the direction of our country. They are overwhelmingly opposed to the health spending bill, what it will cost, and the process used to pass it. And more generally, Kentuckians, and Americans everywhere, are concerned about the consequences of the endless borrowing and spending here in Washington.

Americans worry that we are on the cusp or maybe even past the cusp of a debt crisis. And they are frustrated. They don't understand how lawmakers in Washington can ignore this looming disaster after just narrowly averting the last one. Americans know that this is one crisis no bailout could ever prevent. We could borrow a trillion dollars to dig the country out of a mess that was created on Wall Street, but once the government maxes out its own credit card, there is nowhere to turn--except to the citizens themselves.

So the time to act is now. The deficit this year alone is projected to be more than $1.4 trillion. Social Security recently started paying out more than it is taking in. Interest payments alone on the national debt are approaching $1 trillion a year. Interest rates on mortgages, student loans, and small business loans are threatening to rise. There is no reason to think the problems we are seeing in Europe won't strike here at home if we do nothing to reverse current trends.

Those who continue to use the taxpayer credit card with reckless abandon threaten not only our chances of a quick recovery and the jobs it would create but also the nation's long-term fiscal security--and a safety net that has been built up over the decades precisely for moments like this. Democrats can no longer hide behind the argument of good intentions when the results threaten our very stability as a nation.

We must get a handle on the deficit and the debt. This is the issue that will focus our attention in the weeks and months ahead. And over the coming weeks, I assure you, Republicans will continue to give our colleagues across the aisle and our President the opportunity to live up to the President's commitment on February 13: ``Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else.'' Americans will not tolerate another crisis of Washington's making.

Supreme Court Vacancy

Another issue we will be focused on, of course, is the Supreme Court. Justice Stevens' decision last week to retire from the Court gives us another opportunity to discuss the proper role of our Federal courts and our Constitution.

Last year, during the debate over Justice Sotomayor's nomination, Americans saw the Senate debate and discuss the President's ``empathy'' standard for judicial appointments. At the end of that debate, most Americans--and indeed Justice Sotomayor herself, along with Senators of the President's own party--rejected that standard and agreed with Republicans that judges ought to apply the law, not their own feelings and personal preferences.

We are hopeful that this time around the President will select someone with extensive real-world legal experience and a demonstrated commitment to the rule of law. That is what Americans expect from their judges, whether it is small claims court or the Supreme Court. They do not expect us to select judges based upon whose side the judge is on, as one Democrat on the Judiciary Committee once suggested.

Once the President submits his nominee, Senate Republicans will diligently review his or her record so the American people can be confident that they will be able to fulfill the judicial oath; namely, to administer ``justice without respect to persons and to do right by the poor and by the rich.'' I am hopeful that at the end of the day, I and other Republicans will be convinced that the nominee will be able to do so.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 333, S. 3153, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, very briefly prior to the vote, Senator Coburn and other Republicans will be here tonight and tomorrow to discuss the importance of passing the unemployment insurance package, but also the importance of paying for it. So we will be here and engaged in a vigorous discussion about the appropriateness of the measure as well as about the importance of paying for it.

Madam President, I rise to sound an alarm about a threat to coal-mining businesses in Kentucky. Coal is a vital part of my State's economy, and a vital part of America's energy portfolio. The coal industry creates over 60,000 jobs in Kentucky, including approximately 15,000 coal miners. More than half the country's electricity is generated by coal, electricity those workers help generate.

But this important sector of the economy now faces a back-door attempt to restrict coal mining, one that was implemented without a hearing or a vote by this administration's Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is overstepping its authority by using an approval process meant to assess the environmental impact of mining operations as a means to halt those mining operations altogether.

According to one study by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, it could be estimated that roughly 3,500 mining jobs in Kentucky are in jeopardy if the EPA does not let go its stranglehold on the growth of that industry. And mining industry jobs are not the only jobs lost thanks to this wrongheaded, bureaucratic overregulation. For every coal-mining job, 11 other jobs are dependent on it. That means up to 38,500 jobs in my State alone could be affected.

Let me give a concrete example of how what the EPA is doing directly affects jobs. Out of 49 Kentucky applicants for permits under section 404 of the Clean Water Act, only one application--that is right, one-- is actually under review. 1 out of 49. Actually, that should be 1 out of 42 because seven applicants were kept waiting so long by the EPA's foot-dragging tactic that they had no choice but to withdraw their applications.

After all, during this whole length of time that the EPA unfairly prolongs the process, mine operators must still spend resources to keep their mines ready to operate. Eventually paying these costs while earning no profit in return forces many of these businesses to just give up.

While the rest of the permits are technically pending a review, in reality they are in limbo and essentially dead as long as the EPA refuses to even begin its official review process. This ``run out the clock'' tactic is bad news for Kentucky's economy.

I know I don't have to tell my colleagues we are in a recession. Unemployment is higher than any of us would like it to be. In Kentucky it is 10.5 percent, higher than the national average. My highest priority as the Senator from Kentucky is to help everyone from my State who wants a job to find one.

That is why I must speak out against what the EPA is doing. Their attack on an important Kentucky industry hampers the growth of jobs, and it especially hampers the growth of small businesses--the greatest engines of job creation.

The EPA has turned the section 404 permitting process, already a cumbersome process to begin with, into an illegitimate, backdoor means of shutting down Kentucky coal mines. This is outside the scope of their authority and the law. It represents a fundamental departure from the permitting process as originally envisioned by Congress.

This Senate needs to make it clear to the EPA that they must complete the permit review process in a timely manner, and provide complete transparency along the way to all sides. They cannot continue to impose a backdoor ban on mining operations in Kentucky through an illegitimate process.

Let me add one more thing. The section 404 permit review process is only one aspect of the EPA's war on coal. They are also seeking to impose a backdoor national energy tax by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants under the Clean Air Act, which will hurt our economy and endanger millions of jobs across the country. The Senate will have an opportunity to vote on the EPA's actions in that regard in the near future.

Yes. I would say to my friend the majority leader, since the voting will all occur during the so-called vote-arama, if we could have a minute or so before each amendment simply to describe what it is, that would be helpful.

Would my friend yield for an observation?

Even though allowing that, as the majority leader suggested, is certainly optional, it has been the custom of both sides, when we have been in these vote-arama situations in the past, to allow the time on

each side, and I appreciate the willingness of the majority leader to do that.

Mr. President, I am going to take a few minutes of my leader time before we begin the vote.

Mr. President, the administration and some in Congress wish this debate to be over. They want the American people to sit down and quiet down. That has been their approach to health care for an entire year.

Well, Republicans think Congress serves the people, not the other way around.

We have fought on behalf of the American people this week, and we will continue to fight until this bill is repealed and replaced with commonsense ideas that solve our problems without dismantling the health care system we have and without burying the American dream under a mountain of debt.

That is what we have been doing all week in the Senate. While Democratic lawmakers and staffers threw a party for themselves at the White House yesterday, Republicans were here at the Capitol fighting a 150-page postscript that Democrats added at the last minute to the health care bill. This add-on took a terrible health spending bill and made it even worse.

If you thought the tax hikes in the original bill were bad, this bill raised them even higher. If you thought the Medicare cuts were bad, this bill made them even deeper. If you thought the first bill cost too much, this bill made it even more expensive. If you did not like the special deals in the first bill, they slipped more into this one. The whole thing was one last slap in the face of Americans across the country who have been howling at Democrats for the past year to stop this bill and to work instead across party lines on reforms that would actually drive costs down.

Today Republicans will give Democrats one last chance to reject the horrible impact the underlying bill and this last-minute add-on will have on our country. Unfortunately, we already know that they plan to turn the other way.

We will offer an amendment to direct the Medicare cuts in this bill back into Medicare, to preserve and strengthen it for future generations. They will reject it.

We will offer an amendment to strike all the new sweetheart deals in this bill. They will reject it.

We will offer an amendment that would have obliged the President to keep his pledge that families earning under $250,000 will not see any tax hikes as a result of this bill. They plan to reject it.

We will offer an amendment requiring HHS to certify that this bill does not increase premiums. They will reject it.

We will offer an amendment to strike a job-killing mandate on business. They will reject it.

While the White House is trying to sell this health spending bill to a skeptical public, Senate Democrats today will speak loudly and they will speak clearly about the things in this bill the White House does not want people to know and vote to endorse them: massive cuts to Medicare for seniors; job-killing mandates and business tax hikes; higher insurance premiums; sweetheart deals; tax hikes on middle-class families. This is the real story of health care reform.

Americans may not be hearing about it from the White House, but I assure you, they will be feeling the pain. Americans know this and they want to know that somebody is fighting for them in Washington to make their voices heard. That is what Republicans have been doing on this issue for the past year. That is what we have been doing this week. That is what we will be doing tonight. And that is what we will keep doing until those voices are heard. We are not giving up.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to my friend the majority leader, I agree, I think the process has been well handled today. The top number of amendments that have been offered on past reconciliation bills is 53. We have offered 23.

We have had a number of discussions off the floor, I say for the benefit of everyone in the Chamber, about some process to complete this bill and to complete the next bill that will be brought up by the majority after we finish this bill. I think there is a chance we might be able to reach some agreement on the disposition of this bill and that bill. I think we should

continue to discuss it. I will be happy to continue those discussions with the majority leader. In the meantime, it strikes me we can either continue voting tonight or we could set a reasonable time in the morning after everybody has had a chance to get some sleep, continue voting and discussing and see if we can't wrap up both this measure and the next one in the not too distant future.

I would just add that there are some obvious disadvantages to the minority to be in a reconciliation contest, but one of the advantages is that we have had more amendment votes today than we had in the entire month of December on the previous health care bill. So the majority leader may not think we are serious about changing the bill, but we would like to change the bill. And with a little help from our friends on the other side, we could improve this bill significantly.

But rather than subject all of our Members to listening to the majority leader and myself go back and forth, I would simply suggest it might be a better use of his and my time for us to continue the discussions we have been having off the floor, continue to offer the amendments, and see if we can reach an accommodation that satisfies both sides. Maybe the best way to do that would be for Senator Reid and myself to continue our discussions while we will keep voting, if that is what the majority would like.

Mr. President, last night marked a turning point in our politics and in our Nation.

On a Sunday night in March, with the Nation howling in opposition, a bare majority of Democrats in the people's House ignored the people to claim a win for their party, and then they celebrated. The American people watched all this in utter disbelief.

Here is what the Democrats voted for last night: a vast expansion of the entitlement state that we cannot afford, massive cuts to Medicare, higher taxes, higher health care costs, worse care, taxpayer-funded abortions. Do not believe the spin that this was not a party-line vote. Yes, not a single Republican voted for the bill, but a whole lot of Democrats voted against it as well.

The fact is, the so-called Senate version of the health care bill that passed the House last night could not even pass the Senate today. Why is that? Because this bill is so deeply unpopular that the voters in the most liberal State in the country just elected a Republican to the Senate for the first time in nearly four decades in order to stop it.

Democrats want to pretend this did not happen. They want to pretend New Jersey and Virginia and Massachusetts simply did not happen. They want to pretend the views of the people who sent us here do not matter. They want to pretend we can afford a $2.5 trillion entitlement in the middle of a recession, when we cannot even meet the obligations we already have. They want to pretend future generations will not have to bear the burden of their actions. They want to pretend our actions today will not affect the American dream tomorrow.

They are living in a fantasy, and today that fantasy becomes even more absurd. As if the bill they voted on yesterday was not bad enough, now they want to make it even worse. That is what is going to happen in the Senate. That is what is going to happen in the Senate this week.

Democratic leaders now want us to take the bill that passed the Senate back in December and that the House voted on last night and make the tax hikes even higher and the Medicare cuts even deeper. They want us to endorse a raft of new sweetheart deals that were struck behind closed doors just last week so this thing could limp over the finish line last night.

Americans said they did not want this bill. Democrats passed it anyway. They said they did not like the deals and they did not like the giveaways. Democrats struck them anyway. Now they want to make this bill even worse. They want to add more deals on top of the other ones. Well, I have a message for our Democratic friends: Enough is enough. No more tax hikes, no more Medicare cuts, no more dealmaking, no more backroom deals.

Democrats may have won their vote last night, but they lost the argument and they have lost the trust of the American people. Americans know you don't drive down the cost of health care by spending another $2.5 trillion on health care. They know we can help people with preexisting conditions without slashing Medicare to do it. They know we can do all these things without crippling the economy or forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions. Americans see through the false choices they have been handed by the Democrats here in Washington.

Democratic leaders may have gotten their votes, they may have gotten their win, but today is a new day. Already we are seeing Democrats in the Senate distancing themselves from this effort to make a bad bill worse. So we already know that reconciliation is guaranteed to have bipartisan opposition. Democrats were hoping they could silence the voices of the American people last night, but starting today those voices are going to be heard. Senate Republicans are going to make sure those voices are heard.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, well, it has come down to a few wavering votes.

That is what this year-long debate has come to: a handful of Democrats had been holding out to see the final bill.

Now we have it.

Anyone who was waiting to see what the final bill meant for government spending should vote no, because this bill spends even more.

Anyone waiting to see what the final bill meant for Medicare should vote no, because the Medicare cuts in this bill are even deeper than the Senate bill that Speaker Pelosi said Democrats didn't want to vote on.

Anyone waiting to see what the final bill meant for taxes should vote no, because the tax increases in this bill are even higher than the Senate bill.

Anyone waiting to see what the final bill did to the cost curve should vote against this bill, because this bill is likely to bend the cost curve up even further than the Senate bill, not down.

If you were waiting for a bill without the CLASS Act in it--a provision that even top Democrats describe as a Ponzi scheme, then you will vote against this bill, because it is still in there.

If you were waiting to see if they had cut out the sweetheart deals that have outraged the Nation and soured the public on the entire legislative process, then you have to vote against this bill, because there are even more of them in there now.

If you were waiting for a bill that costs less, then you will vote against this bill, because it costs even more than the last one.

And if you were waiting for a bill that wouldn't compel taxpayers to

cover the cost of abortions, then you will vote against this bill because this is, the National Right to Life Committee says, the most abortion-expansive piece of legislation ever to reach the floor of the House of Representatives.

Americans are outraged at what is going on here: a bill that aims to shift a major segment of our economy into the hands of the government, and which accomplishes that goal by imposing crushing burdens on already-struggling seniors, middle class families, and small businesses, is being rammed through Congress against the clear will of the public. No amount of spin will change the fact that Medicare will be deeply cut, insurance premiums and taxes will go up, the Federal bureaucracy will grow, and as demand increases, the quality of care in this country will get worse and worse.

Taking a bill that House Democrats are too embarrassed to vote on, adding more than $50 billion in new taxes and slashing $60 billion more from our seniors' Medicare and keeping sweetheart deals may make some Washington Democrats ``giddy,'' but it is not reform.

This bill isn't an excuse to vote in favor of the Democrat plan for health care. It is a reason to vote against it.

Anyone who votes for this bill is clearly less concerned about responding to their constituents than responding to the pressure tactics of Democrat leaders in Congress.

Some may have concluded that there is more merit in following the cajoling voices in Washington than the clear voices of their constituents back home, more merit in choosing to side with Democrat leaders in their quest to ram this bill through over the wishes of the American people.

Some may argue that the details we have seen since yesterday are reason to support it. But if anything is clear in this debate, it is that yesterday's CBO score is conclusive proof that this health care bill is unsalvageable.

This is something the American people realized a long time ago, and now they are counting on the final holdouts to vote on their behalf this weekend. Now that they have seen the final bill, they can't understand why anyone would do otherwise.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.